Civil War
Just finished reading the first issue of Civil War, Marvel Comics new crossover mini-series. And I have to admit, I really enjoyed it. The art, by this Steve McNiven dude, has evolved over the year or so since I first saw his work, and it’s actually very detailed and unique. I was really impressed. Now I see what the big fuss about this guy was about.
I haven’t been keeping up with comics for over the past two months. I have about a stack sitting on the table, and a folder full sitting on my computer hard drive, so I really don’t have the details that lead to the events in Civil War. But that’s okay, because I was still able to follow the story. The story seemed pretty self-contained, only referring to recent events that most readers would already know about, things like Avengers: Disassembled, Wolverine: Enemy of the State, and that crap that happened last year, House of M. So, I didn’t feel out in the cold trying to figure out what the big issues were going into issue number one. Plus, the book’s opening sequence helps catapult the primary conflict to the forefront.
It focuses on the New Warriors, who I haven’t seen in a while, trying to nab a bunch of no-names I can’t seem to recognize, while doing some reality Cops-style show. They expect the gang to be an easy catch, hopefully upping their rep and their television ratings in the process. But, things go terribly wrong. And one of the bad guys goes nuclear, killing everyone in the process. I think the explosion wipes out the town or something. but I could be wrong because several townspeople are at the funeral, including a grieving mother, who spits a wet one in Tony Stark’s face.
After the incident, the government, sensing growing public concern, starts on the road of inacting a super-hero registration act. Funny thing. But wasn’t there a mutant registration act about a decade or so ago. I wonder whatever happened with that? Anyway, the registration act has several heroes divided, including Spider-man, who wouldn’t mind keeping his secret identity secret, and Luke Cage, who for whatever reason, just can’t stand or trust the man. And who can blame them. Look at Daredevil. His life is in complete shambles, and all because his secret identity became public knowledge.
The story progresses as we see a suprising development, Captain America possibly becoming the head of the group of heroes against the registration act. He’s attacked by Shield when he refuses to join them in rounding up the rest of the anti-registration heroes in one of the best action packed comic book fight scenes I’ve seen in recent history. Marvel has done a good job rebuilding Captain America, from his hokey red, white and blue one-dimensional past, to the dynamic new age action hero of the present day.
The book ends as we see Iron Man standing with Mr. Fantastic and some other dude whose name I can’t recall, promising some governement figurehead that they will bring in Captain America and the other anti-registration heroes.
I usually rip on these big comic book events, and this one may eventually suck in the end. The problem with crossovers is that you have to read a million books to figure out what’s really going on. It’s one of the problems I had with Infinite Crisis. Half the time I was lost. And by the end, who knows what the hell really happened. But as a starting point, this book was pretty much on point. And if Marvel can keep most of the main story points self-contained within the main books, this could turn out to be one of the most intriguing comic book miniseries in a long time.
Recently
Leave a Reply